Tupperware and the Vitruvian Man–from And Now This

Aside from the parties, which usually featured lots of appetizers and white wine, I’ve always hated Tupperware. I think of this because my wife and I are preparing to go on a little vacation. In a few days we will go to the airport, and, for reasons of economy and bonhomie, we will invite friends to ride with us. Four of them, two of us, all six with luggage packed with enough stuff for seven days. My wife is convinced we can get all of that in our van. 

“No problem,” she says.  “Don’t forget, I’m in packaging.” 

Technically she is not. She’s in design, automotive, engine. When you think of packaging, you think of guys putting the new refrigerator you ordered into a big box in Iowa, with some wood and wire, lots of Styrofoam, probably a couple bushels of that synthetic popcorn that packaging people love so much. She is not in that kind of packaging. She draws pictures of engine parts, figures out how to maximize the flow of fuel and air through tubes, usually before that mixture explodes, though I’ve heard her talk about post-combustion exhaust and emissions, too, and cam lobes, pistons, rods, compressors, jackets, and pumps. Sometimes in the middle of the night she has waking dreams about flow. She talks in her sleep about gromets and tolerances and mils.

She’s in packaging in the sense that those engine parts have to fit in a very tight space. The days of the straight six are long gone. Under the hood of the Ford Maverick she drove when I met her there was enough space for a six-cylinder engine and for a picnic lunch and a sleepover. Under the hood of whatever she’s working on now (top secret, not yet in production), space is at a premium. Dipsticks the diameter of toothpicks. Everything crammed in a space roughly the size of a large suitcase. She helps the auto industry put a refrigerator in an envelope. 

“We can all fit,” she says.

“There’s not enough room for us and all that luggage,” I say.

The problem is that they are round. Since classical times the circle has been regarded as a symbol of perfection, a representation of God, no beginning, no end.

We had a Tupperware party shortly after we were married. My wife invited a few pals from work. My friend Ludlow came. He and I swilled Chablis and ate cheese thingies while the Tupperwoman made her presentation. Ludlow bought a green plastic device that enabled him to do something with olives. My wife and I loaded up on containers, lots of sky blue and mustard yellow containers, most of them round, with the signature Tupperware seal that ensured your leftovers and steel-cut oats would remain fresh until the apocalypse. These cursed things are still with us, in the basement, in the kitchen pantry, in the mudroom pantry (we keep our mud in Tupperware), and in the garage. Most of them are empty. Tupperware, anyone who has the stuff has probably discovered, is best used to store other Tupperware.

The problem is that they are round. Since classical times the circle has been regarded as a symbol of perfection, a representation of God, no beginning, no end.  Leonardo’s Vitruvian man brings the circle and square together. “The square,” he writes in The Magical Proportions of Man, “symbolizes the solid physical world and the circle the spiritual and eternal. Man bridges the gap between these two worlds.” I wonder what Leonardo would have made of Tupperware. Circular, it participates in the divine, while gobbing up physical space in the square confines we call cupboards.  Plastic, it lasts forever. If he’d had the stuff, I bet Leonardo’s credenzas would have been full of Tupperware full of Tupperware.

I could get rid of our Tupperware, but I feel it is not really mine. Were we to separate, which seems less and less likely all the time, my wife would definitely get the Tupperware. It seems less and less likely we will separate because I’ve learned in forty-some years of marriage not to get rid of her stuff.  

I’ve also learned that when it comes to matters involving spatial relations and visual thinking, she’s way smarter than I am. When we moved our son to Atlanta, he and I started throwing stuff helter skelter into the back of the van. Then I thought, Wait, maybe there’s a better way to do this. Where is our packaging expert?

Six people, luggage packed for seven days, one van. We’ll see. At least luggage designers know enough not to make suitcases round.

For riding with us, we could gift our friends with Tupperware. Hand them round packages, favors, each with a card: Just a little something for you. I can see curiosity getting the best of them.  They shake their packages.  Hmmm, something inside. They pull apart the wrapping, crack open the trademark Tupperware hermetic seal. Peek inside. What’s inside yours?